http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
A BULLETIN from the Country Club of Little Rock brings word that one of its
new members is former Clinton White House chief of staff Thomas "Mack"
McLarty. This might ordinarily pass unnoticed, but McLarty is not precisely
a new member, and the Country Club of Little Rock is not your ordinary
hangout for the well-heeled: It was the backdrop for an early episode of
Clinton-era moral posturing that turns out, in McLarty's case anyway, to
have reached its expiration date.

For a modest $25,000 fee and about $2,000 a year in dues, members of the
club, nestled on a bluff overlooking the Arkansas River, can swim, play
tennis, and play golf on a sprawling 18-hole, par 70 bent-grass course.

There's no denim, and no shirts without collars. And there used to be no
blacks.

But then candidate Clinton came under fire in March 1992 for playing golf at
the club with 13-year member Webster Hubbell. Nine months later, the club
found itself embracing its first‹and apparently only‹black member: economist
Howard Curtis Reed. Rest assured, the reception was brief. Reed soon enjoyed
the further good fortune of landing a job in Washington under then U.S.
trade representative Mickey Kantor.

But that didn't end the embarrassment the club's monochromatic membership
would cause Bill Clinton and his hometown friends. When Hubbell was set to
appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee in early 1993 for confirmation
as associate attorney general, it was payback time for Republicans, whose
judicial nominees had been keelhauled by that committee with some regularity
over the preceding quarter century for membership in exclusive clubs. This
was usually hypocritical mau-mauing of men whose only character flaw was not
bigotry but a fondness for golf. Still the issue had been potent enough to
give rise to a Judiciary Committee rule, which holds that it is
inappropriate for nominees to belong to a discriminatory organization unless
they "actively engaged in a bona fide effort" to end exclusive membership
rules.

As recently as two years before Hubbell's date with the committee, in March
1991, Florida judge Kenneth Ryskamp, a Bush federal appeals court appointee,
had been crucified by the committee's Democrats for waiting until a week
before his confirmation hearing to resign from the WASPy Riviera Club in
Coral Gables, Fla. Ryskamp's nomination was rejected, to the tune of moral
preening by the likes of Sen. Edward Kennedy: "I'm concerned whether someone
can have an open mind in the courthouse and a closed mind in the country
club." Kennedy and many of his Democratic colleagues who rejected
Ryskamp‹Joe Biden, Howard Metzenbaum, Dennis DeConcini, Patrick Leahy,
Howell Heflin, Paul Simon, and Herbert Kohl‹were still running the committee
at the time of Hubbell's hearings.

Needless to say, the outcome was different. Colleagues came forward to say
that Hubbell had been an ardent integrationist behind the scenes, trying
without success to recruit black members for the club‹a claim that left
Arkansas NAACP leaders and at least one black state legislator nonplussed.

"I don't know how much of an effort [Hubbell made], how important this was
to him," said state representative William Walker. Still, Hubbell announced
his resignation from the club. "There remains in the minds of some people
the perception that my continued membership in the club reflects some lack
of sensitivity," he piously said.

And that wasn't all. Just hours later, three other senior White House
officials who were members of the club‹chief of staff Thomas "Mack" McLarty,
and White House counsels Vince Foster and William Kennedy‹also resigned.
Solidarity! This ritual sacrifice by Hubbell's colleagues did the trick. His
nomination was assured. And what a painless sacrifice it turned out to be.
After all, who wants to play golf in Little Rock, when the finest courses of
the Washington, D.C., area are at your disposal?

And now, it turns out, the grand gesture of moral high principle is
revokable. After his stint at the White House, McLarty opened up shop back
in Little Rock. And where best to conduct business? In the Country Club of
Little Rock, to which he again belongs. Howard Reed, too, has returned to
Little Rock, though it may be news to that city's country clubbers. Active
members say they've yet to see Reed on the veranda, eating lobster thermidor
and sipping
gin.

Sam Dealey is a reporter for The Hill Send your comments to him by clicking here.